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RENA ROSS
Inasmuch as African American News&Issues is dedicated to reserving as much
of the Black History as our living historians made during their long and
productive life times, it’s always a challenge to build a Fiesta’s Black
History 24-7-365 quality feature from a funeral program that gives very
little information about a love one who had lived for almost a century.
Nevertheless, we gladly accepted the challenge in the case of Rena Ross
whose 99-years of living and giving was celebrated at Our Mother of Mercy
Catholic Church, 4000 Sumpter, on February 14, 2004, with Father Charles
Andrus officiating.
Other than a very limited obituary, no information was available (other than
a list of her active pallbearers that included: Daniel Duffy, Anthony
Lastrape, Larry Domingue, Kevin Bellar, Ray Bellard and Austin Tenette.)
Rena, the second of Fonrelien Valien and Edmie Landry Valien’s eleven
children was born on December 23, 1904, therefore she came into a world
wherein her people had been freed from chattel slavery less than 40 years,
thus got first hand account of the brutal life from family members who were
the last generation that was born in slavery, but the first generation of
Africans who were totally made in America. Fact is, although we have no way
of validating it, but if Rena was in Houston she surely witnessed a
historical event that was to greatly impact the lives of her family and
neighbors.
On April 28, 1928, she very likely was among the hundreds of Catholics
living in Fifth Ward who were at the ground breaking ceremonies for the
erection of Our Mother of Mercy on the corner of Sumpter and Granger
Streets. The first building was completed on June 7, 1929 and the assistant
pastor of St. Nicholas Catholic Church (located in Third Ward), was
installed as the Fifth Ward institutions first leader. In 1940 Our Mother of
Mercy opened its first school to accommodate the children of the residents
of Fifth Ward’s historic “French Town” settlement. Such settlements wasn’t
unusual throughout the nation, insofar as migration was essential to Black
Americans progress and oftentimes those moving to different cities, also
paved the way for their relatives and neighbors, therefore entire
neighborhoods often were comprised of family members and/or friends who had
migrated from the same locale.
In fact, African American population distribution and migration patterns can
be traced using maps published in the statistical atlases prepared by the U.
S. Census Bureau for each decennial census from 1870 to 1920. The atlas for
the 1890 census includes a map showing the percentage of "colored" to the
total population for each county. Although the heaviest concentrations are
overwhelmingly in Maryland, Virginia, and the southeastern states, there
appear to be emerging concentrations in the northern urban areas (New York
City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toledo, and Chicago), southern
Ohio, central Missouri, eastern Kansas, and scattered areas in the West
(Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California), reflecting
migration patterns that began during Reconstruction.
Meanwhile, although Rena was only 13, but was filled with pride when she
learned that more than 350,000 African Americans volunteered to defend their
country in World War I. Perhaps, she even questioned why those brave Black
men had to serve in segregated units during World War I, mostly as support
troops. Several units saw action alongside French soldiers fighting against
the Germans, and 171 African Americans were awarded the French Legion of
Honor. In response to protests of discrimination and mistreatment from the
Black community, several hundred African American men received officers'
training in Des Moines, Iowa. By October 1917, over six hundred African
Americans were commissioned as captains and first and second lieutenants.
Earlier, Rena had pondered what voting was all about.
She more than likely wondered why White men went to such great lengths to
keep her people from being able to vote. One of the many methods used to
keep African Americans from voting was the grandfather clause. Later in
life, Rena would come to realize that the grandfather clause held that a man
could only vote if his grandfather had voted. Poll taxes, literacy tests,
voting fraud, violence, and intimidation also proved effective means of
barring African Americans from the ballot box. The NAACP successfully fought
against grandfather clauses in court. In 1915, an 11-year-old Rena watched
her elders celebrate when the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Guinn v.
United States that the grandfather clauses in the Maryland and Oklahoma
constitutions were null and void, because they violated the 15th Amendment
to the Constitution.
And you can be sure that Rena had total recall, when it came to The Great
Depression of the 1930s, which hastened a trend toward urbanization. In the
same period Blacks in Dallas organized a cotton-processing mill, but it
failed in less than five years. These self-help and economic development
efforts by Black Texans indicate that they did not allow the oppression of
white racism to deter them from striving to build successful communities.
And Rena Ross certainly did her part to help build her community, because
she lived a full and productive life before God called her home on February
10, 2004.
Her children, Samuel Ross, Leona Ross and Catherine Ross, had preceded her
in death. And she left precious memories for her sister, Clementine Lewis;
nine grandchildren; great-grandchildren; and five great-great-grandchildren
and a host of other relatives and friends.
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